Great news from Kansas. Friday morning the Senate approved SB 95 the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act, by a vote of 31-9.

Crafted by the National Right to Life Committee to withstand Constitutional scrutiny, SB 95 heads to a very receptive House, where it is expected to pass easily, and then on to pro-life Gov. Sam Brownback, who promised to sign this bill.

Lead sponsor Sen. Garrett Love (R-Montezuma) began yesterday’s formal discussion on the Senate floor by recounting how members of the Senate Health committee heard an ex-abortionist describe this method

“of tearing the arms, legs, and other body parts off until a baby dies. Hearing the description made myself and many other members of the committee feel sick [especially] when learning nearly 600 such abortions occur each year in Kansas.”

Sen. Love, the ‘youngest-ever-elected’ to the Kansas Senate, discussed his new baby daughter and coming to love her more through her ultrasound imaging at 12 and 19 weeks gestation, the time frame when most dismemberment abortions occur. He said,

“people in my generation are outraged by this procedure; they see the sonograms of their friends, family and their own babies on Facebook and realize that in those pictures are little, defenseless babies. They need us to defend them because they cannot defend themselves…This is a truly barbaric practice we must end in Kansas.”

Unfortunately, none of the eight Democrat Senators supported the bill and only two strident abortion supporters, Marci Francisco (D-Lawrence) and David Haley (D-Kansas City) chose to speak yesterday. Unsurprisingly, neither discussed the dismemberment method per se.

Sen. Francisco took pains not to use the word dismemberment and referred to ‘the procedure’ as being very safe for women. She offered one amendment that would gut the entire bill replacing it with new language eliminating many pro-life provisions enacted over the past five years. Her amendment was strongly rejected.

Sen. Haley riled up his peers by saying SB 95

would cost too much to defend,

was purely a political ploy using inflammatory terms of ‘unborn child’ and ‘protection,’ and ‘dismemberment,’

was advanced by people who are anti-science,

was improperly being debated by male Senators, who have no right to vote on this issue since they can’t ever get pregnant.

He finished by calling himself a defender of mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters who should not be restricted from access to ‘healthcare’ –i.e. abortions.

Of course these are all side issues, which were easily and quickly rebutted. Thus, it was clearly demonstrated in the Kansas Senate, that the pro-abortion side has no substantive defense for the barbaric abortion procedure of dismembering living, tiny unborn babies with sharp metal tools.

The Kansas Pro-Life Protections Act (HB 2253) passed the Senate by a vote of 29-11, after a nearly 3-hour debate Monday that focused on extraneous amendments offered by pro-abortion Democrat Senators.

Only one amendment (tweaking the tax code) was adopted. Because of that, HB 2253 must procedurally be “re-passed” in the House before heading to Gov. Sam Brownback’s desk.

The Pro-Life Protections Act actually enacts no new restrictions on abortion, rather it:

recognizes that life begins at fertilization for purposes of public policy decisions;

prevents state discrimination against pro-life entities;

restricts tax-payer funding for abortion;

defunds abortion training at the state university medical school;

keeps abortion businesses out of public school sex-ed;

codifies informed consent topics already used by the state health department;

strengthens medical and community support for Down Syndrome & other conditions.

Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook (R-Shawnee), Chair of the Health committee, introduced and defended HB 2253 as positive and protective legislation. She had her hands full explaining what the bill didn’t contain when rebutting senators repeating the spin that liberal pro-abortion forums like the Huffington Post have spewed for two years.

Sen. David Haley (D-Kansas City), who ordinarily causes pro-lifers to groan, really startled observers Monday by first complaining that abortion opponents “impose narrow Taliban-like philosophies” and then with his repeated–and bizarre– claim that “this bill would empower rapists.” Haley twice admitted in debate that“he didn’t know what was in the bill,” even though he was in the committee that took testimony and ‘worked’ the bill!

Haley offered three hostile amendments that failed; the first one was identical to the Wilson amendment which was offered and failed 2 weeks ago during House debate on this same bill. Though described as limiting three abortion laws for women pregnant by assault, the language actually would invalidate ALL Kansas abortion statutes, including—just to name a few– informed consent, parental involvement, physician penalties, and protection of unborn children who feel pain.

Haley’s second amendment was described as keeping birth control legal, which is already in Kansas statute, and his third motion was to table the bill.

The third abortion supporter to offer an amendment was freshman Sen. Pat Pettey (D-Kansas City). She wanted breast cancer and pre-term birth topics removed from the bill’s informed consent provisions.

KDHE (the state health department) has determined for 15 years that these topics are relevant to provide legally acceptable informed consent.

KDHE cites the Institute of Medicine and a 2009 international meta-analysis in their exposition of possible future pre-term birth risk.

As for breast cancer, KDHE has a modest section citing that there are studies for and against what is known as “the independent” risk factor of abortion. What is pre-eminent is the incontrovertible biological evidence that the risk of breast cancer is reduced with a full-term delivery. An already-pregnant woman deserves that information.

In fact, a national Planned Parenthood fact sheet (submitted by the Kansas City affiliate in opposition to HB 2253) actually reinforces this fact in their breast cancer section:

“reproductive factors have been associated with risk for the disease since the seventeenth century…it is known that having a full-term pregnancy early in a woman’s childbearing years is protective against breast cancer.”

Now compare Planned Parenthood’s statement above with the first 3 sentences in the KDHE abortion informed consent booklet, under breast cancer risk:

Your chances of getting breast cancer are affected by your pregnancy history. If you have carried a pregnancy to term as a young woman, you may be less likely to get breast cancer in the future. However, your risk is not reduced if your pregnancy is ended by an abortion.

The language is nearly identical! Sen. Pettey’s amendment failed. The challengers sought headlines, not improvements for the bill. Kansans can be proud of this legislation.

Today, a guest post from Pro-lifer Bill from Olathe: “I had the pleasure of being in the Senate chamber today for the passage of H Sub SB 36, the Abortion Clinic Licensing Bill. It passed 24-15 and will almost certainly be signed into law by Gov. Brownback. Some high points of this bill are:

it requires clinics to meet minimum medical standards, like having doorways wide enough to fit a gurney through and keeping the surgical equipment from being stored amongst medical waste.

it requires that injuries and deaths occurring during the act of abortion are reported. As it stands, if a woman isn’t reported dead at the abortion clinic itself, then there is no requirement for the clinic to report the death. This makes tracking the number of abortion-related injuries and deaths rather dicey.

it would ban the prescription of RU-486 via web cam. Honestly, I didn’t even know this was an option. Any time I have a sinus infection, my doctor of 15 years requires I’m tested and checked out before prescribing the same antibiotic he prescribes every year. I suppose abortionists are a little less concerned about the health of their patients.

This is a good bill, and a necessary one. Kudos to the right-thinking 24 senators. My beef is with the usual suspects who attempted to defeat (more…)

Bruce added “the smartest man he knew, one of only ten neuro-radiologists in the country” supports the science of the bill that unborn children aged 20 weeks post-conception (22 weeks gestation) can acutely experience pain.